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The Indian economy may have slowed to its weakest pace of growth in three years, but take an evening tour down Marine Drive in Mumbai this week and you could be forgiven for thinking the boom days were back.

This month marks the peak of the Indian wedding season, when Mumbai’s usually grubby waterfront is transformed into a dazzling nocturnal theatre for the ostentatious celebration of wealth.

Beneath the fireworks, elaborate lights, bouquets and turbaned grooms arriving on white mares, Mumbai’s business elite can be seen stepping from their white Mercedes-Benzes and Rolls-Royces for some serious air-kissing.

It is understandable that the construction of an air-polluting,
noise-blighting £22 billion third runway to turn Heathrow into the world’s
pre-eminent superhub caught the eye, but the Davies report into airport
expansion also made another radical suggestion: that — third runway or not —
Heathrow should start acting like the UK hub that it pretends to be